O'Brien's has had its hands in the botched clean-up efforts of almost every high-profile oil spill disaster in recent U.S. history, including the Exxon Valdez spill, the BP Deepwater Horizon spill, the Enbridge tar sands pipeline spill into the Kalamazoo River, and Hurricane Sandy.

In other words, the gas industry isn't joking about its desires to export shale gas to the global market, despite paying homage to the necessity to frack for "national security" and domestic energy purposes.

If TransCanada felt it had weathered the worst of a five-year battle with environmentalists and other critics of the Keystone XL pipeline project, events of the last week or so will have curbed their enthusiasm.

The firm that DeSmogBlog revealed has historical ties to Big Tobacco and currently has a client list that includes Koch Industries, ConocoPhillips and BP, Environmental Resources Management (ERM) Group, also has a direct connection to TransCanada itself.

Why aren't all Keystone XL opponents loudly demanding that President Obama stop construction of the pipeline's 485-mile southern leg that is destroying the lives of our fellow Americans in Texas and Oklahoma?

A carbon tax is the only step that truly enlists markets in the fight against climate change. As fossil-fuel companies are forced to pay for the damage their carbon is doing to the planet, the price of their products would rise.

It is time to take a hard stance on Keystone XL. We need a clear evaluation of the damage to our health and environment that will result from this dirty energy project. And then we need to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

The president left town during a historic rally pressuring him to take action to reject a pipeline, in order to play a game based on egregious wasting of natural resources with someone who does business with Anadarko, an oil/gas/pipeline company.

The Keystone pipeline is like a gigantic hypodermic needle stuck into America. Its promoters know we are addicted to the wrong drug -- fossil fuels -- but they know we do not have the willpower to kick the habit as long as the pushers find new ways to slip us one more fix.

A line has to be drawn somewhere. A line that says we will no longer permit America's energy decisions to jeopardize future generations. A line that says we have to curtail greenhouse emissions while we still have a chance to save the planet.

Ending TransCanada's assault on Texas and Oklahoma is the first and easiest thing the president can do to show America he is serious about addressing a climate crisis spiraling out of control on his watch.